Has Branson Finally Failed At Something?
The Beat is reporting that Richard Branson's comic book line, Virgin Comics, is preparing for substantial cutbacks in its staff as well as its New York office being completely shut down. I'm honestly a little surprised a this news as the company was the brainchild of mega-mogul Richard Branson, the man behind Virgin Music, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Air and Virgin Just About Everything Else.
Bright side to this though, while the publishing arm is in dire straights at the moment the licensing arm is doing a bang up job. There are multiple deals for movies, TV shows and DVDs for properties based on the company's characters.
For the full story, hit the jump.
Rumors about Virgin Comics are flying fast and furious this weekend. Sources are telling me that the comics publishing is getting drastically reduced or eliminated and most of the New York staff has been let go...however official announcements or confirmation are yet to come.Virgin Comics launched in 2006, funded by billionaire mogul Richard Branson, with input from author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. However, the principle movers and shakers at the company are comics-loving entrepreneurs Sharad Devarajan, Suresh Seetharaman, and Gotham Chopra. From the start Virgin has produced several lines of comics -- the "Shakti" line, based on Hindu mythology and culture, and the "Director's Cut" line which features concepts by directors such as Kapur, Guy Ritchie, and John Woo. The "Voices" line includes comics based on concepts by a variety of Hollywood/entertainment types, from Nicolas Cage (Nowhere Man) and Dave Stewart to Hugh Jackman and, most notoriously, Jenna Jameson.
Virgin Comics had also recently pacted with the Sci-Fi Channel to both produce comics based on TV shows and develop comics as shows. The first was The Stranded, by Mike Carey, which is being developed as a pilot.
Virgin's most recent notable announcements are a deal with Stan Lee to create an entire new superhero universe, and The MBX, a series of webisodes based on the Mahabharata written by Grant Morrison.
Virgin's print comics line never seemed to catch fire, either in the US or India, so cutbacks would come as no surprise. It would be equally surprising to see a lot of their development deals and web-based material disappear, however.
Developing.
Goblin
Posted to Comics on 25 August 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: Richard Branson, virgin comics
I think the problem is that none of the Virgin titles are particularly compelling. Instead of throwing a bunch of stuff based on Eastern mythology at a wall of Westerners unfamiliar with the source material, to see what would stick, they should have focused Virgin's considerable resources at creating 'must read' titles. I think if the comic lines disappear, Hollywood will get nervous and all of the licensing deals with evaporate in short order.